


In All Shapes and Forms

by raikaya (rqyh)



Series: Seasons: The Four Briwoon AUs [1]
Category: Day6 (Band)
Genre: Also Very Anime, Banter, Domestic Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Light Angst, Living Together, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pet Daycare AU, Pets, Set in Spring, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Yoon Dowoon-centric, shapeshifter AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-04 08:10:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rqyh/pseuds/raikaya
Summary: Dowoon is the owner of Pet Holiday, a pet daycare where he takes care of and watches over the dogs of various pet owners while they go on about their day. It's a simple life, one that Dowoon is happy and contented with despite the drawbacks, and it would seem that it would continue on as so, never changing for any reason whatsoever.Then, one day, he meets a fox in the middle of an alleyway and suddenly finds himself in a spiral of things that are anythingbutsimple.(If only he had read that animal manual more thoroughly. Oh, if only.)





	In All Shapes and Forms

**Author's Note:**

> **Result of the poll: 3rd place!**

“Thank you for coming—have a great day!”

             Dowoon smiles to himself as one of his regulars leaves the daycare with her shiba inu, the little thing prancing out and about on his way out of the door—almost bumping himself into the glass, too, for the sixth time that day. Little Nino used to have an injury in his left leg a few weeks back and so stayed moping in the corner with Hyunggu’s baby pugs, which isn’t really much fun unless you liked staring at silent crumpled faces rolling around aimlessly. Humans, maybe; shiba inus, not so much.

             So, seeing him being his happy-go-lucky self again brings a warm feeling in Dowoon’s heart, even though it’s also paired with the incessant fear that Nino is probably going to get himself injured again. (The only reason why he even had that broken bone was because he jumped so much trying to reach for his breakfast that he slammed his leg against his owner’s table. Oh, Nino. Sweet, sweet Nino.)

             Dowoon shakes his head at the thought and moves over to the corner, where all the puppies—that is, Hyunggu’s pugs and Jungwoo’s dalmatian—are situated in the corner with a little fence around them, keeping them at bay for now.

             Dowoon sits down cross-legged and looks into their little corner: Woojung is currently trying to eat(?) Rosie, Romeo, Rodel, and Rina with the way he’s licking at their crumpled, gray fur and jumping around like he’s coercing them to come play with him. Unfortunately, the siblings are seemingly uninterested in their spotted friend and only care about taking a nappy—as they always do.

             “Don’t worry, Woojung,” Dowoon says, reaching out a hand. The dalmatian perks itself up when he sees it and immediately comes trotting over; Dowoon gently shakes its fur, scratching behind his ear. “You’ll get big soon enough and then you’ll be able to play with the older dogs, okay?”

             As if understanding what he said, Woojung lets out a tiny, squeaky bark and Dowoon laughs, ruffling his fur once more.

             He turns to look at the rest of the room and finds a satisfied smile leave his lips.

             It’s been three years since Pet Holiday got its own home in the almost-center of the city, and so far, it’s been pretty good. Not booming or extremely popular or anything like that, but he definitely isn’t struggling, and the few regulars that he has always comment on how good of a job he does, how their pets seem to always want to be here, and how wonderful it is that he provided a place that they needed so badly; they were always worried about leaving their pets home alone.

             It was hard at first to keep things going, especially with how the rental fee and the renovation practically sucked all the money out of his pockets and bank account, but gradually, Dowoon was able to come up with just enough to survive the first month, then the second month, then the sixth, the sixteenth, and now his thirty-fifth—just one more month until Pet Holiday’s third anniversary.

             Keeping all of this up was definitely the hardest thing that Dowoon’s ever tried to do in his entire twenty-four-year life. It beat high school—heck, it even beat _college_ , and college was _absolute_ hellfire. Trying to come up with a pet daycare from handing out informative fliers for a walking service to the tenants, to babysitting one dog or cat a day in his own apartment room, to renting a space in the absolute worst place in the city to put up a daycare (would it have killed someone to let Dowoon know that the apartments there had a ban on pets?)—all of that was an absolute nightmare, and if Dowoon didn’t love his job, he wouldn’t have gone through with it.

            But that’s just the tea, I guess—Dowoon _did_ love his job, and he loved it so, so much.

            The day Tori and Hosun came to his life in the form of his parents holding the puppy and kitten in their relatively giant arms was the day Dowoon found out that the love of his life was never going to be a human, but rather, animals. Pets. Confidants. Family. For better or for worse. Until death does them apart.

            The moment those two approached him with their tiny little legs and their tiny little faces and the tiny little bark Tori made and the paw that Hosun booped him with, Dowoon knew that he wanted to take care of pets for a living—not as a professional veterinarian, but as a babysitter. To be able to meet and re-meet different stories and lives in the form of furry friends jumping out and about; to be able to be surrounded by bundles of joy that don’t make it all that difficult to keep a smile permanent on Dowoon’s face; to be able to watch over them, make sure they get the right foods, the right exercise, the love they deserve—

            All of that Dowoon finds rewarding in itself. All of that makes Dowoon feel like a parent watching over his twenty children (though he thankfully only watches over three or four at a time)—the feeling that every single hardship he’s ever been through was worth it, if it meant seeing his babies healthy, happy, and here, even when at the end of the day they’ll be leaving to go to a different home. Even that is worth it because he knows those pets are in safe hands, living happily and hopefully happier with the brochure that Dowoon gives every pet owner telling them how to better take care of their pets.

            So, despite the setbacks that he had gone through and the few more… recent ones he has to deal with, Dowoon finds everything worth it despite it all, the feeling that seeing his babies living their best lives is a better reward than any amount of coins dropped in his savings.

             Looking around the daycare, Dowoon can see the wide, glass panes that now let in light into the room, the white, pristine walls that give just enough space for the dogs to run around and play, the wooden shelves and drawers that contain all the necessary materials and equipment to keep running the daycare, the counter and seating area that is separate from the playground, the brown door that leads to the backroom, and the glass door that leads to the front.

             Dowoon imagines all the dogs that had come here, either once or once again. The room is empty now save for the puppies because it’s almost closing time, but he knows that in the morning, the daycare will be occupied by the older dogs who just love to run around and play (unless you’re Hyungwon’s chihuahua, then you just love to stay in the corner with your chin held up high and act as if you’re above Kihyun’s golden retriever, which you deem stupidest of them all).

             There are many things that Dowoon would love to change or add to what he has now: maybe expand the waiting area a bit, start babysitting cats as well as the dogs, hire a helper so he could watch over more pets at a time, or even add flowers to the leaf design on the walls. But right now, he’ll just have to focus on checking the list off item by item, gradually going on his way to achieve his goals so he could do his job better.

            The door opens with the sudden chime of the bell and the six faces in the room instinctively turn to see two figures come inside, arguing about something.

             “—viously, my dogs would win against Woojung—there’s four of them, Jungwoo!” Hyunggu is saying, walking inside.

             “Yeah, four pugs who only ever lie down and do nothing all day,” Jungwoo counters, staring back at the older with the most non-intimidating glare known to mankind, though Jungwoo himself probably doesn’t think so. “Woojung has enough energy in him to last a _month_ of no extras—and you know how much he loves his extras.”

            Dowoon stands up from where he sat, spotting the puppies—even the four pugs who looked like they were invested in playing dead—jumping up and down at the sight and sound of their owners, looking like they couldn’t be more excited than then.

             “Hyunggu-ssi, Jungwoo-ssi,” Dowoon greets, walking over to them. “You two arguing again?”

             “Hello, Dowoon-hyung,” Jungwoo greets back with a bow and a smile sweeter than strawberries, in contrast to the look he gave Hyunggu earlier. “And yeah, we are—this guy here keeps telling me that my Woojung can’t defeat his four pugs in a battle. Like, girl, please.”

            “Hey, my pugs may be the most nappy dogs in the universe, but they have that natural predator instinct,” Hyunggu counters to that. “It’s in their nature, Jungwoo. Put them in a real fight and you’ll see.”

             “Well, I’d recommend to not put either of them in actual fights until they’re older,” Dowoon says, going over to the counter. “They’re still babies practically and can only do a bit of playbiting.”

             “ _Ugh_ , I _knowww_ ,” Jungwoo whines. He brings out a sigh from his lips and a wallet from his pocket.  “It’s so aggravating to not be able to play with Woojung yet. I mean—he’s already so active, but he’s not old enough to try to catch a Frisbee.”

             “Good thing my babies and I prefer to nap all day,” Hyunggu says with a dignified huff, bringing out his wallet as well. “We don’t need that active lifestyle to keep happy.”

             “Which is why I keep saying they’ll never win a battle with my Woojung.”

            “Alright, alright, enough of that.” Dowoon puts a hand up before a murder happens in his daycare. “Do you really wanna fight in front of the kids?”

             At that moment, Rosie lets out a tiny bark and Dowoon watches Hyunggu melt on the inside.

             “I will always remember her first bark…” he almost whispers, looking almost teary-eyed.

             The two give their payments for the day and Dowoon lets the puppies out from their fence, Rodel and Romeo bumping into Dowoon’s ankles on their way. He watches with a smile on his face as Woojung jumps into Jungwoo’s arms and the four pugs jump into Hyunggu’s basket, looking like they couldn’t be happier than in that exact same moment.

             The seven of them give their thanks and bid their goodbyes, leaving Dowoon in the daycare alone.

             Another satisfied sigh leaves his lips, and Dowoon walks over to the counter to fix things up. He collects the earnings, goes to the backroom to put them in safe place, locks the door. Moves over to the front, gets his things, and shoulders his way into a jacket. Double-checks everything, makes sure all the windows are locked, before flipping the OPEN sign to CLOSED. He opens the door, locks the door and then, finally, leaves.

            Another day ended well, as per the usual.

 

Dowoon walks on the busy streets of the city, the rush brought about by the pink trees lining themselves up on a certain street like royal guards in a palace. He can see about two tourists per tree taking photos in about the most generic way possible, a group of high school students looking like they’re filming for a video project (that girl there is really good at fake crying. Also, kudos to that guy who’s throwing petals in the air for the ~ambiance~), and a couple old men and women wearing their signature ahjumma hats either taking a walk or on their way to take a hike at the mountain tops.

             It’s nice to see people so harmonious like this, people of different backgrounds coming together to appreciate the pink petals that in a week would be gone in less than a breeze. Unfortunately, however, with more people appreciating nature’s beauty comes more people blocking Dowoon’s path home—and that means having to go down a different route than his usual.

             Dowoon sighs to himself as he turns away from the scene, going down a path that is somewhat familiar to him, but only vaguely. He’s probably only gone here once or twice, but hey—new paths just mean new adventures, right? Just hopefully none involving him getting mugged and/or kidnapped.

            Walking downhill and looking around him, Dowoon spots various shops and buildings that he’s never seen before. A few uncommon coffee shops, a small bookshop that looks like it can only accommodate ten people at a time, an odd shop that looks like a stall for magical trinkets and goods (it’s probably a scam; best not get with that), among other things. There are also a few people walking around in this area—quite the contrast to the crowd among the cherry blossoms earlier—just a couple adults walking around, a teen looking into the glass of a boutique, a kid in front of a shop playing fetch with a dog.

             It’s a peaceful sight, one that brings ease into Dowoon’s heart. It reminds him that every single person around him is an individual with a different story, a life so different from his, and how the pages of the books merge with other stories, writing and writing over the lines of the lives they live. Whether legible or illegible, depending on the reader.

             Dowoon’s fairly certain that the life he’s chosen is a good one, though a lot of people would say otherwise, that he’s wasting it. I mean—yeah, he doesn’t earn as much as doctors or engineers do, and yeah, maybe he _is_ being self-indulgent choosing a job that involves playing around with animals,

             But it’s a life he loves doing and a life he knows he’s passionate about. A life that brings a smile to his face, and a life that has him satisfied despite not having as much as other people. Besides, taking care of animals isn’t just play, you know! It’s also keeping track of their behavior, checking for any problems that the dogs themselves probably aren’t aware of, making sure they don’t accidentally hurt themselves, and knowing when it’s time to see a vet.

            Though the world around him tries to convince him that there are better things he could be doing, Dowoon can’t imagine anything else. He loves the daycare, he loves Pet Holiday—and he doesn’t want anything else but that.

              _CRASH!_

             Dowoon jolts out of his thoughts, turning to his left to see an alleyway across the street with its trashcans all toppled over to the side, something obviously having bumped into them. He turns to look at the few people around but it doesn’t seem like anyone else had noticed what happened—or maybe they’re just too unbothered to care.

            Dowoon turns back to the scene in the distance and squints, trying to get a good look. It doesn’t seem like there’s anything there at the moment, no movement at all. It’s like whoever made that noise just disappeared. _What on Earth just happened?_

            Dowoon just shakes his head; it’s probably none of his business. Maybe it was just gravity’s fault or maybe it was a flasher toppling the trash cans down on purpose so they could get Dowoon’s attention and probably sell his organs or something. Either way, it’s still just a trash can. Dowoon doesn’t even know why he was so curious in the first place.

            Dowoon moves to turn away.

            But then he spots a single, fluffy white and orange tail peeking out from under the trash cans.

            And Dowoon runs faster than he has ever in his entire life.

            Dowoon reaches the alleyway in just ten seconds, having sprinted like he was just a centimeter short of winning a race, and actually pauses for a moment, needing to put his hand on the wall for a few seconds. After calming his heart down, he slowly approaches the trash cans, peering into the alleyway and bending down a little for effect.

            As he looks into the narrow alley, he can spot all the darkness and dirt in the world thrown into it, though thankfully he’s spared from unbearable odor. There’s no one here right now, save for him, the shadows, and the vandal on the wall spelling out “GO GO LETS GO LETS G” before it suddenly got cut in the middle.

            That, and the fox lying in between the trashcans, a bad-looking injury on its left hind leg.

            “Oh my god,” Dowoon blurts out before he can stop himself, and the fox suddenly turns its head towards him in a surprised jolt, black eyes staring up at him wide.

            From where he stands a little into the alleyway, Dowoon can see the orange and white pattern forming a visible division between the fur on the back and front of the fox. The tips of its ears, feet, and tail are dusted in black patches of fur, and as it looks up at Dowoon, it tries for an intimidating glare. But Dowoon can tell how weak it is—knows it because of how one of his regular’s Finnish Spitz always tries to put up a big front whenever its sick—especially with the big patch of blood right on its leg.

            Dowoon slowly lowers himself down to a crouch, trying his best to not frighten the fox or make himself look intimidating. He knows he can’t just approach a wild animal and try to pick it up recklessly, or he’ll risk getting bitten or even making the injury worse.

            So, he tries a calming voice.

            “Hi, there, little guy,” Dowoon greets first, trying to make himself look as visibly relaxed as possible. “My name is Yoon Dowoon. You can’t understand that, obviously, since you’re a fox, but I’m just trying to make sure you don’t see me as a threat so then I could help you with your injury better.”

            The fox says nothing to that—obviously—and Dowoon takes a deep breath. So far, so good.

            “Look, I’m not a trained professional or anything, but I do know my animal wounds,” Dowoon continues. “If you would, please let me check on your wound and just assess it for a little bit, so I could know what to do next. I swear, I’m not some fox hunter or something. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

            The fox doesn’t do anything, and while Dowoon can’t be too sure if it’s okay, he takes a leap of faith and slowly approaches the fox, inching bit by bit as to not scare it.

            Once he finally reaches it and sees that the fox isn’t attempting to run away, he turns to look at its leg, at the red patch spreading across the black of its foot.

            Looking at it closely now, Dowoon can see that the injury is a laceration, a big gash going from one side to the other. It looks recent, too, as if the fox just somehow got itself acquainted with a knife or a broken door hinge in the past hour. If that’s the case, then it must have walked all the way here just to lose its balance and topple over all the trashcans in the alley. And sure enough—when Dowoon looks beyond the alley, he can see red pawprints staining the cement.

            “Man, this looks bad…” Dowoon says to himself, mumbling. The fox suddenly perks its head up at that, as if it suddenly got worried at what Dowoon said.

            He looks even closer at the wound, checking for any swelling, or any redness spreading around it. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like it and there doesn’t seem to be any pus leaking out either.

            Dowoon turns to look up at the fox, who turns up as well, as if it was also looking at its wound.

            “I’m just gonna place my hand on your forehead, okay? To check if you have a fever,” he says. “It’s one of the signs if you have an infection from your wound.” On surface value, the fox seems healthy enough, but Dowoon can never be too sure.

            Slowly, he reaches a hand, taking care not to scare the little guy.

            But instead of the fox, it’s Dowoon who gets mildly surprised because suddenly, the fox puts its head forward before Dowoon could even reach his fur, as if it understood exactly what he was trying to do.

            Dowoon pauses for a few seconds, shocked at what just happened, but he eventually finds himself and presses his hand on the fox’s forehead gently, feeling the tickle of the fur and the slight warmth placing a light kiss on the palm of his hand.

            “Oh, thank god, you don’t have a fever,” Dowoon lets out in a breath, instinctively stroking the top of the fox’s head. “It seems that you don’t have an infection for now—hopefully, I didn’t forget anything from that manual.”

            Dowoon retracts his hand and the fox follows his eyes, as if checking what he’ll do next.

            “Well, like I said, I’m not a trained professional, so while I can check on wounds, I definitely cannot treat them,” Dowoon says, sighing a little. “If it was a minor wound, I could try, but this is definitely not minor at all.

            “Don’t worry, little guy. Once I get you to the vet, you’ll be up and ready in no time.”

            Suddenly, the fox lets out a surprised yelp and tries to stand up—only to fall back down as soon as it put pressure on its leg.

            “H-hey, be careful!” Dowoon says, trying to keep his voice down despite the worry concentrated in it. “You’ll make your injury worse. We have to get you to a vet, or this wound might _actually_ get an infection.” He remembers how dirty this alleyway is.

            But the fox just lets out a whine, shaking its head from side-to-side as if telling Dowoon, “No, I don’t want to go.” Dowoon has never seen a fox shake its head no before—then again, he’s never even seen an actual fox before, so maybe this is actually a normal thing for them.

            “Come on, little guy,” Dowoon says, trying to keep his voice calm as possible. “I’m just gonna try to lift you up, okay? I’ll take care not to put pressure on your wound.”

            Dowoon reaches out a slow hand towards the fox, but it flinches before Dowoon could even touch its fur. It also backs away a little, as little as it can go, and Dowoon puts his hand back, suddenly feeling a pang of hurt in his chest.

              _It’s just a fox, Dowoon_ , he tells himself. _Just a fox trying to protect itself._

            Dowoon takes a good look at the little guy, seeing how its leaning away from him, looking at him with such scared eyes when before he was so eager to let Dowoon pat his head. _What did I do wrong?_

            Dowoon tries to remember anything, but he followed the manual clearly. It was only when he mentioned the vet that the fox suddenly looked scared.

            … Huh.

            Dowoon looks up at the fox and says only one word.

            “Vet.”

            And the fox leans further away, looking even more scared beyond relief.

            Dowoon lets out an unbelieving breath. The fox reacts to the word “vet”—and negatively, at that. There must have been someone—maybe a previous owner—who used that word somehow before giving this fox a hard time. Dowoon isn’t sure if foxes can learn words like dogs can—he knows they come from the same ancestor—but if this one reacts so strongly, then…

            Dowoon lets out a sigh.

            “Okay, I won’t take you the v—I mean, the animal doctor,” he says.

            Almost instantly, the fox relaxes, slowly leaning back forward towards Dowoon like it had been earlier. It’s almost as if he understood Dowoon completely.

            “But we _have_ to get your wound fixed up somehow, and I don’t wanna risk making it worse when I have no experience,” Dowoon says.

            He looks down and stares at the ground, trying to wrack his brain for any solution he could think of. If the fox reacts so strongly to just the word “vet”, then secretly bringing him to one would probably break all hellfire loose. And his poor heart can’t handle losing the trust of such a wonderful creature. What should he—how could he even—

            Suddenly, he feels a tap on his hand and he looks up to see the fox putting up his well paw on Dowoon’s palm, eyes looking straight at him, as if he can feel his concern. It’s almost like there’s a human in there, trapped inside a fox’s body.

            Dowoon glances down at the wound on the fox’s leg, then lets out a huff, suddenly determined.

            “Okay,” he says. “I think I know what to do.”

            He reaches down to gently take the fox in his arms and the little guy almost jumps into them, complying immediately. He makes sure to stand up slowly, checking to see if there’s any pressure being applied on the wound, but the fox seems comfortable, at least. It’s even nuzzling its nose in Dowoon’s chest.

            Dowoon lets a smile pull up his face, finding a fondness for this fox. It’s a shame it probably won’t last with him long, but let’s not focus on that for now.

            “Come on, little guy,” he says. “Let’s get you fixed up.”

  


The water faucet comes to a squeaky close and Dowoon turns his head to see a familiar figure walking his way to the living room, pulling his sleeves back down to his wrists.

            “You’re lucky I have experience in treating wounds like this, or else this all could have gone really badly,” Sungjin says, walking over from the sink after washing his hands. “I’m a _human_ doctor, Dowoon, not an animal doctor. I still think you should’ve gone to the vet.”

            Dowoon places two palms against the ears of the fox lying in his lap.

            “Sungjin-hyung!” he says, scandalized. “Not in front of the children!”

            Sungjin is Dowoon’s brother-in-law, being the sibling of his older sister’s husband, though he’s known him ever since forever. Back in Busan, they always hung out to play and have sleepovers, and when Sungjin moved to Seoul for high school, Dowoon followed him there, as well, not wanting to be left alone without a friend, even in a familiar place.

            He’s also a doctor—a pediatrician, to be more precise—and while Dowoon knows there are different types of doctors out there for certain kinds of wounds, he’s pretty sure that all doctors have to know how to treat a gash, at least. So, when Sungjin arrived at his apartment twenty minutes after Dowoon repeatedly called him, he knew the fox was in safe hands.

            Sungjin just rolls his eyes at that, though he sits cross-legged next to Dowoon by the couch, eyeing the fox nestled deep in his lap with its eyes closed. It’s currently treating Dowoon’s stomach like a pillow, pressing its head against it; its leg is wrapped in a pink-ish bandage after Sungjin treated it (magic), no signs of blood at all.

            “I can’t believe you actually found a fox in a city like this,” Sungjin says, looking down at the little guy. “I didn’t even know foxes lived in the area. He must’ve come from the mountains.”

            “I guess so…” Dowoon says, looking down at the fox and patting its head. “Wait—did you just say, ‘he’?”

            “Dowoon, it’s not that difficult to figure out whether a fox is a male or a female.”

            “Pervert.”

            “It’s an _animal_.”

            “Racist.”

            Sungjin runs a palm down his face, looking like he just lost ten years of his life.

            “Anyway, it’s a good thing that he seems to be a tame fox, at least,” he says, eyeing the way Dowoon plays with his ears. “I think I read somewhere that foxes are naturally scared of humans—something like always having a flight response in every situation? But this guy seems to like you a lot.”

            At that, the fox buries its face in Dowoon’s stomach further, almost purring like a cat, though Dowoon knows that’s physically impossible. A smile crawls its way up his face and he pulls the fox closer to him, feeling his heart swell up.

            It _is_ sort of a miracle how this fox just accepted him so easily. Dowoon also read something like that online; the article told him that it could take days, or even weeks before a fox would be comfortable enough to be around a human. Heck, even the fox from The Little Prince said so. So, when Dowoon approached him earlier in the alleyway, he thought he’d be having a much harder time dealing with it.

            Instead, the fox welcomed him with open arms; didn’t even flinch away when Dowoon first made eye contact with him either. And it seemed that with every word Dowoon uttered, the fox listened intently, as if it really understood what he was saying.

            It really makes Dowoon feel like he has a personal connection with this fox, even though he’s only met him for a few hours. Like… I don’t know… For some reason, Dowoon just wants to keep staying by his side.

            “Yeah, I know…” Dowoon sighs, stroking his orange (scarlet?) fur. “I wish I could keep him…”

            Dowoon already knows the raised eyebrow on Sungjin’s face before he sees it.

            “Dowoon, you _know_ you can’t keep him,” Sungjin says. “He’s a wild animal, far from his natural habitat, and it’s dangerous both for you and for him to be kept in this closed apartment. He may be calm now, but you said that he suddenly acted out of nowhere when you mentioned the ve—I mean, the ‘V’ word to him—” Dowoon had sent him a pointed look— “so that means he’s unpredictable.”

            “But hyung, look at him!” Dowoon points to the bundle of fluff in his lap. “He isn’t doing anything bad! And you also said he’s tame, too.”

            “And if he is, that means he must have an owner, right?” Sungjin rebuts and Dowoon glues his mouth shut. “And you can’t keep someone else’s pet. Either way, wild or not, you can’t keep him, Dowoon. If he has an owner, we’ve got to give him back. If he doesn’t, we’ve got to give him up.”

            Dowoon lets out a sigh, turning to the fox. For the entire duration of their conversation, he had stopped cuddling with Dowoon’s stomach and turned his head up to the both of them as if he was listening in, too. And his eyes are looking straight at Dowoon’s, as if trying to send him a message.

            But he’s a fox, not a human. And Dowoon can’t understand anything he says, nor can the fox understand him.

            Dowoon sighs again and just strokes the fox’s head, feeling him lean against his palm.

            “Well, in any case…” he starts, “Tori-yah and Hosun-ah would probably prefer that, at least.”

            The three of them turn to the corner of the room to see a white dog and a gray cat in a frightened heap of fur, staring at the fox in Dowoon’s lap as if it was possessed—or worse, a vacuum cleaner.

            Then, the fox moves towards them, just a slight, slight inch forward, and the two absolutely lose it and scream in fear, bumping into each other as they run in the direction of Dowoon’s room.

            The fox then makes what sounds to be a snicker and goes back into Dowoon’s lap, nuzzling his nose into his stomach.

            “Foxes love to tease, huh,” Sungjin says. “I think I read that somewhere once.”

            “You know an awful lot about animals for a human doctor, hyung.”

            “You’re the one who kept gifting me all those animal encyclopedias as a kid. You only did that, so you could read them, as well.”

            “And I do not regret a single thing,” Dowoon says, looking down at the fox in his lap and playing with his ears once more.

            The fox purrs(?) once again and simply lies down on Dowoon’s lap, an almost satisfied smile on his face.

  


Dowoon dries his hair with a towel as he walks inside his room, spotting the three animals situated next to each other on the carpeted floor. Tori and Hosun are seated upright beside each other at a distance, while the fox is seated across them by the edge of the bed, the three of them forming some sort of triangle. It looks like they’re part of a cult.

            Dowoon sits down next to them, cross-legged.

            “I hate to tell you this, guys, but demon summoning usually needs a sacrifice,” he says solemnly. “And I’d offer myself, but then there’d be no one would taking care of you, would there?”

            The fox makes a noise like a breath of laughter while Tori just waddles over and climbs onto Dowoon’s lap. Meanwhile, Hosun mewls and stretches out, turning to sleep on the floor a while after.

            Dowoon lets out a sigh, stroking Tori’s fur absentmindedly. He watches as the fox approaches Hosun with a calm stance, limping a little from his injury but trying not to get too affected by it. He remembers the way it flinched away from Dowoon when he mentioned the veterinarian, how scared it looked. He wonders what on Earth happened to it that it made such a reaction.

              _“You know you can’t keep him_ ,” Sungjin had said, and Dowoon knows it’s true. He’s already occupied with keeping watch over his dog and his cat, not to mention all the regulars at Pet Holiday. He doesn’t know how to take care of a fox, isn’t a professional in that regard, and like Sungjin said, keeping him would be both a danger to Dowoon and the fox himself. The best choice in this matter is to give him up to the authorities so they could either find his owner or return him to the wild. That would be better for him. Better for all of them.

            And yet.

            The fox walks over to Hosun and places (1) paw on the cat’s nose; he doesn’t respond. Then, he proceeds to lick the cat all over and Hosun starts purring, looking like he always does when Dowoon scratches him in the right places. Meanwhile, Tori stares at the two of them, before jumping off of Dowoon’s lap and then jumping on the back of the fox’s, her tiny white stature a perfect fit on his neck.

            The fox doesn’t react much, except to turn his head to boop it on Tori’s before going back to Hosun, like they’re already close family. As if Tori and Hosun were never afraid of him in the first place.

            Dowoon feels his heart crack a little, a painful pranging centered in his chest. A heart is a heavy burden, as they say, and Dowoon’s is much, much too full.

            Dowoon scoots over and strokes the fox’s head a bit, feeling him pause before staring straight at Dowoon’s face.

            “I want to keep you,” he says to the fox, giving him a sad smile. “But I can’t. You’re a fox, and I don’t know how to take care of a fox. I don’t want you to live here just so you could have a hard time. Also, it’s illegal. If only it wasn’t illegal.”

            The fox leans against Dowoon’s hand, Tori inadvertently sliding off his back with a tiny _bork_. Like he’s telling him, “It’s fine. I get it. Thank you for today while it lasted.”

            Dowoon smiles one last time before removing his hand and picking a crying Tori from the floor. He puts her in her bed in the corner of his room, then goes to pick up his sleeping Hosun and put him next to Tori.

            He turns to look at the fox— _his_ fox, if he could call him that—and crouches down to pat him on the head.

            “Wanna sleep next to me?” he asks. “I tried once with Tori-yah but she kept moving around and hitting my head, and Hosun-ah is a nice companion to sleep with but he prefers his bed.”

            At that, his fox leans once more into Dowoon’s palm and Dowoon takes that as a sign to lift him up, knowing he can’t jump onto the bed with his limp leg.

            Dowoon settles him down next to him and goes over to drape the blankets over himself, knowing his fox doesn’t need it to keep warm (but he figures if he did, he can just go under it himself; his fox seemed to be a lot smarter than most pets he knows).

            He goes to turn off the lights and is met with a dark room, everything around him a different shade of black. He feels something nestle in the crook of his neck and he reaches a hand up to stroke his fox’s fur for a bit.

              _I wonder what kind of name I’d give you, if I was allowed to keep you,_ he thinks, feeling his eyes droop down to a drowsy close, the events of today much, too much. _Maybe Brian would be a good idea…_

But he doesn’t let that thought finish because a dream suddenly replaces it. He doesn’t remember much of it—heck, maybe he never even dreamed at all. But what he does remember is a warm feeling, of someone caressing his hair, of someone saying something with the words “would”, “still”, “if”, and “wasn’t”.

            He falls asleep, letting the warmth take over him.

  


The next day, Dowoon wakes up to something wet being spread onto his face, already knowing the perpetrator before seeing who it is.

            “Tori-yah, I swear to god,” Dowoon groggily says, gently pushing the living ball of fluff away from him with a hand.

            He groans a little, opening his eyes just as so as he hears Tori bark a tiny one, now settling with licking his hand. The image of the white ceiling grows wider with every time he blinks again, getting more and more awake as more and more light hits him.

            He sits up and stretches his arms up a little, hearing Tori whine at the loss of her toy before feeling her jump in his lap.

            Dowoon finally blinks himself awake, fully (or at least ninety percent), and looks around the room, eyes instinctively settling onto the bed across his. Hosun is still sleeping in his tiny bed with his tiny blanket and his tiny eggplant pillow and this tiny cut-out of a famous cat vlogger online (he’s a big fan). He actually looks like he’s having an even better dream than usual.

            Dowoon hums to himself, finding everything as normal as possible. For some reason, though, he can’t help but feel like there’s something missing.

            Oh, wait. He brought home a fox yesterday. How the heck did he forget _that_?

            Dowoon whips his head around his room, trying to look for any sign of an orange (scarlet) and white-colored creature but finding nothing.

            “Huh,” Dowoon says aloud. “Where on Earth did Brian go?”

            He picks Tori up and places her on the floor. He lies down on it beside her, looking to see if Brian somehow fit himself under the bed—but there’s nothing there.

            He stands up to open his bathroom—empty, just like the toilet paper container that he should really refill. Looks inside the closet—nothing except clothes and the sexuality which has yet to come out.

            He opens his drawers, searches his shelves, draws open the curtains, but there’s no sign of a fox at all, Brian or otherwise. The windows are still locked as ever, so that must mean he left through the door to Dowoon’s room, even though he’s sure he closed it very firmly.

            Leaving his two pets in their humble abode, Dowoon walks out of his room, finding himself in the familiar scene of his living room.

            “Brian!” Dowoon calls out. “Brian, where on Earth did you go?”

            “Who the heck is Brian?”

            Dowoon stops cold, feeling himself freeze in his tracks at the sound of a deep, unfamiliar voice. He had heard it somewhere to his left, somewhere behind him.

            He turns around slowly, feeling his nerves send earthquakes all around his body. He starts chanting, _Please don’t be a murderer Please don’t be a murderer Please don’t be a murderer—_

But when he sees who it is, he starts to wish it really _was_ a murderer.

            For what he sees in front of him is a man he has never seen before, his hair dyed a shade of either orange or scarlet, a couple of moles lining his face.

            He’s looking at Dowoon with the most amused look on mankind, a cheeky grin directed right at him, right hand giving him a tiny wave as he leans on the kitchen counter.

            His eyes sharp. Sharp, like a fox’s.

            And his body completely naked.

            “Hey, Dowoon,” the man greets with a grin. “Nice to see you again.”

            The scream that left Dowoon’s lips at that moment was enough to send an earthquake across the entire country. And then, the entire world.

  


  


  


  


  


**Author's Note:**

> Hello, everyone! So, this is the first fic under my "Seasons" project (informally dubbed as "The Four Briwoon AUs", courtesy of me on Twitter), which is a series consisting of four different and unconnected Briwoon AUs that each represent and is set in a certain season. This one, entitled, "In All Shapes and Forms" is our Spring fic featuring a Shapeshifter AU, a Pet Daycare AU, and My Complete Lack of Knowledge on Anything Animal-Related, hooray! (During our [guessing game on Twitter](https://twitter.com/raikayyylmao/status/1113400352122953728), there were actually quite a few who were able to guess it _almost_ exactly, but they failed to guess on the "Set in Spring" aspect of the AU. I told you it wasn't that deep, you guys ^^;;) 
> 
> The idea for Seasons basically is that after posting all of the first chapters of all four AUs at once, readers can decide which AU they want to be finished _and_ posted first and [after a one-month voting period](https://twitter.com/raikayyylmao/status/1126094484519829504), the results showed that "In All Shapes and Forms" would be the **third** fic to be finished!
> 
> During the waiting period, I will still continue to post WSLY chapter updates, as well as some scattered fics so that it wouldn't be that too difficult of a wait ^^. As I continue to write the fic, it is possible that things from the original chapter posted could change, but rest assured that the main elements of the story are fixed and would only have minor changes, if ever. 
> 
> Each story under Seasons is a chaptered fic with a progressive plot, which is a complete divergence from my usual one-shots and episodic chapters. I wanted to be able to challenge myself to come up with more unique AUs and interesting plots and character dynamics so that I could better improve on my writing skills, as well as provide more varying content for the readers and basically the fandom as a whole! I'm always striving to get better at everything I do, and although I know I've still got a long way to go before I can _really_ call my works excellent, I hope that at the very least, you, as the reader, are able to learn something, make yourself think or reflect, and/or smile because of some of the things I've written. After all, that is my ultimate goal when it comes to these things ^^.
> 
> "Seasons" is a project I've been wanting to do for a long time now, and I hope that by the time it's finished, I've had provided and made stories that were worth the wait.
> 
> Thank you for reading this little thing of mine, and I hope you have a wonderful day!
> 
> twitter: [@raikayyylmao](https://twitter.com/raikayyylmao)  
> curiouscat: [@raikayyylmao](https://curiouscat.me/raikayyylmao)  
> hellopoetry: [@ruqiruqi](https://hellopoetry.com/ruqiruqi/)


End file.
